The effects of global warming on the environment and for human life are numerous and varied. Some effects of recent climate change may already be occurring. Rising sea levels, glacier retreat, Arctic shrinkage, and altered patterns of agriculture are cited as direct consequences, but predictions for secondary and regional effects include extreme weather events, an expansion of tropical diseases, changes in the timing of seasonal patterns in ecosystems, and drastic economic impact. Concerns have led to political activism advocating proposals to mitigate, eliminate, or adapt to it.
Projected climate changes due to global warming have the potential to lead to future large-scale and possibly irreversible effects at continental and global scales. The likelihood, magnitude, and timing is uncertain and controversial, but some examples of projected climate changes include significant slowing of the ocean circulation that transports warm water to the North Atlantic, large reductions in the Greenland and West Antarctic Ice Sheets, accelerated global warming due to carbon cycle feedbacks in the terrestrial biosphere, and releases of terrestrial carbon from permafrost regions and methane from hydrates in coastal sediments.
Greenhouse gases are produced by many natural and industrial processes. Greenhouse gases in the earth's atmosphere help regulate global temperatures through the greenhouse effect. Greenhouse gases are essential to maintaining the temperature of the earth; without them the planet would be so cold as to be uninhabitable.
However, excess greenhouse gases contribute to global warming by raising the temperature of a planet to dangerous levels. Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the concentrations of many of the greenhouse gases have increased. The concentration of CO2 has increased by about 100 parts-per-million (ppm) (i.e., from 280 ppm to 380 ppm). The first 50 ppm increase took place in about 200 years, from the start of the Industrial Revolution to around 1973; the next 50 ppm increase took place in about 33 years, from 1973 to 2006.
Accordingly, there is a need for a system and methods that reduce global warming by decreasing the CO2 content in the atmosphere.